Politicians are gathering again to outdo one another through the formation of alternative platforms for elective offices. ELEOJO IDACHABA writes on the desirability or otherwise of a third force that can displace the two major political parties come 2023.
As the 2023 general elections draw nearer, politicians in their usual gimmicks are devising every conceivable option to remain afloat since politics appears to be their full time vocation in this part of the world.
That is why in many instances, they always have in their kitty what is known in the political parlance as Plan B otherwise referred to as a third force with the aim of seeking public office in the event of any surprise from their current party.
A former governor of Kano state and founder of Kwankwasiyya political movement, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, recently blamed both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the current poor state of the nation.
Kwankwaso stated that those political parties have failed Nigerians and, therefore, have nothing more to offer. Therein lies the idea of forming an alternative platform to pursue their political ambition.
Kwankwaso, in particular, who was once a prominent member of the two dominant political parties, therefore, floated a political movement called The National Movement (TNM), but even then, it is widely believed that he cannot exonerate himself from the rot in the country having been part of the various administrations since 1999.
Knocks
A political analyst, Emmanuel Oladedu, writing on The fallacy of Third Force, asked rhetorically, “Why is it that some elites are fond of threatening to raise what has now paled into a third force against the two major parties only few months to parties’ primaries?
“This is the tragedy of the peculiar Nigerian third force: ideologically fatigued, politically lazy, strategically directionless. They are remote from the grassroots, bereft of winning ideas and strategies. Yet, they posture as messiahs during periodic elections. What is the third force up to, besides being a band of political jesters? Or, are they warming up for post-2023 polls?
“Most of them now crave state power and resources which have eluded them or slipped from their palms as one-time actors, collaborators, allies and beneficiaries of the system they now fruitlessly seek to vilify, dethrone, discredit or blackmail. Fundamentally, the jurisdiction of the third force is theoretical opposition to the current political leadership.
“Third force whether past and present only exists on the pages of newspapers. After elections, it disappears only to re-appear in another four years. It lacks a formidable structure with taproot across the nooks and crannies of the country. The goal, according to observers, may be restricted to attention seeking.”
No difference
Speaking in the same vein, a newspaper columnist, Abdulraheem Ishag Ringing, went down memory lane, saying, “From 1999 to 2014, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) established and retained political dominance by tightly gripping the presidency, the majority of state governorship and both the national and state assembly seats for 16 uninterrupted years.
“The year 2015 however marked a tipping point for the PDP and the inception of a new era in Nigeria’s politics characterised by absolute political dominance of only two parties who jointly control more than 95 percent, not the total voters in Nigeria. We have over the years seen a number of these third force movements, the most popular among them being the Coalition for Nigeria (CNM) conceived and championed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo which was launched in 2018. Others include the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Nigeria Intervention Movement (NIM), National Consultative Front (NCF), Rescue Nigeria Project (RNP) and a host of other political parties like the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), African Action Congress (ANC) and Young Progressive Party (YPP).
“Interestingly, The National Movement convened by Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is the newest addition to the fold. The unveiling of the movement has re-ignited debates on the possibility of having a successful third force.”
According to him, “Obasanjo’s CNM, for example, which is similar in terms of conception and intent to Kwankwaso’s TNM was only able to get 0.36 per cent of the total registered votes, representing 97,874 votes after collapsing into the Action Democratic Congress to contest for the presidency in the 2019 election.
“People might want to believe Kwankwaso is different from Obasanjo because he currently leads a massive crowd of political ideologues under the aegis of Kwankwasiya movement; however, trends from the 2019 presidential election in Kano (Kwankwasiya stronghold) were suggestive of the fact that the movement lacks overwhelming voting power and does not have the capability of delivering bloc votes. Moreover, none among the other founding members of TNM equals 50 percent of Kwankwaso’s political capital.
“In Nigeria’s contemporary political context, the idea of the possibility of the emergence of a successful third force capable of checkmating PDP and APC at the presidential level still remains a fallacy because the APC/PDP hegemony is real and formidable.”
TNM’s alliance with NNPP
In the meantime, TNM recently formed by Senator Kwankwaso has formally evolved into a political party known as New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
Speaking after a seven-hour meeting in Abuja, its interim national chairman, John Ifeimeje, said the movement decided to adopt the name NNPP with a view to rescuing the country from what he called bad governance orchestrated by the ruling party.
It was gathered that Ifeimeje was also named as chairman of the party’s national caretaker committee. Likewise, a former minister of youth and sports development, Solomon Dalung, and Buba Galadima, a former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, were named as members of the caretaker committee.
Others members were Dr. Boniface Aniebonam who is the chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT); Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, deputy chairman; Oladipo Olayoku, national secretary; Major Gilbert Agbo (retd.), national publicity secretary and Prof. Rufai Ahmed Alkali, national organising secretary; among other positions.
According to him, since its unveiling last month, the movement had received overwhelming responses from across the nation such that huge numbers of individuals and groups had been trouping into the national secretariat of the party to identify with and join the movement.
“We have resolved and agreed to fuse ourselves to, and adopt a political platform in order to further our struggle to rescue our country from maladministration and nepotism, from incompetence and impunity, from insecurity and corruption, from poverty and squalor, from hopelessness and despondency and from the attendant existential threats of disunity occasioned by unprecedented micro-nationalism that is being fuelled by the total absence of inclusiveness, fairness and justice in the manner our country is being ruled in recent years.
“TNM has, therefore, fused together with the NNPP. Members of the TNM have adopted and agreed to join NNPP because of the overwhelming similarity between the party and TNM in terms of their aims and objectives, mission and vision, core values and core beliefs as well the shared patriotic tendencies of the leaders and members of both the NNPP and the TNM.”
The taste of the pudding is in the eating. The extent to which the Third Force can bulldoze its way through to impress Nigerians before the 2023 general elections would determine how far and well it can go.
